Volume 1 contains 40 selections from texts written between the fifth century B.C. and the first century A.D., during which the classical Chinese language was fully developed and standardized. These passages, which express key themes in Chinese humor, wit, wisdom, moral conviction, and political ideals, are arranged in the order of complexity of the grammatical patterns they exemplify. Uniquely, each text is translated into both modern Chinese and English. Volume 2 contains a detailed glossary of unfamiliar terms and names found in Volume 1, and Volume 3 features detailed grammatical analyses, in which every sentence in the main texts is fully diagrammed to show the grammatical relations between their various parts.